In today's fast-paced environment, it is often necessary for a group to purchase quickly or to form for the purposes of making a purchase. No individual or member of a group may alone have the proper buying credentials, purchasing power, expertise, time to oversee transactions, or credit. Thus, it is useful if there would be a way to create a “virtual buyer” or “buyer simulacrum” consisting of members that function as a single unit. Traditional methods are not well suited for collaboration among members of the buyer simulacrum. For example, financial credit-granting agencies and other financial institutions typically focus on individual performance, history, and credit rather than a buyer simulacrum's accomplishments. Financial credit is awarded to an individual rather than a group of people assembled on the fly, for the purpose of making purchases.
In some situations, however, it may be irrelevant to a seller, potential financial partner, or employer whether an individual or a group of individuals possess a required set of skills, credit, record of purchases, liability, and knowledge. For example, a buyer simulacrum may claim a certain amount of credit. A seller trying to sell a good or service to this buyer simulacrum may be unconcerned about how credit is divided among the buyer simulacrum members. The seller may just care that the buyer simulacrum possesses the proper credit rating or other relevant characteristics. A buyer simulacrum is often constituted of individuals with specific skills and financial characteristics such as financial credit and experience in financial deal making, some of which may be unique to the simulacrum. No single member of the simulacrum may have sufficient credit, insurance, and other relevant characteristics, yet all simulacrum members may need to contribute with both expertise and funds.
It is currently difficult to replace simulacrum members with others, in the event that a simulacrum member becomes unavailable for personal reasons, or because some higher-priority deal requires his or her attention or skills. Conventional buyer/seller environments are generally unsuited to deal with such responsibility apportionment to selected simulacrum members in a manner that reflects the collective knowledge, skills, experience, trustworthiness, financial characteristics, and funds of a buyer.